Is my dog a Brazilian Terrier?

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We got Bindi just over a year ago and the person we got her from said that she was a Fox Terrier cross… We didn’t know which breed of dog she was crossed with… She seemed to have a very unique appearance…

It seemed as though her head wasn’t in proportion to the rest of her body… At one stage we were thinking that she was Smooth Fox Terrier X Chihuahua X Whippet or Italian Greyhound due to the shape of her body and her long legs, and we thought that she may have got her small head from the Chihuahua…

When my partner took her to the vet the other week to get her shots the vet mentioned that she thought she was a different breed of terrier… My partner didn’t really listen to the type of terrier she suggested…

So I looked around on the Internet and came across the Brazilian Terrier… It’s the closest match I have found so far…

I was just hoping that someone that is familiar with the Brazilian Terrier breed would be able to take a look at Bindis pictures and let me know whether it is possible that she could belong to the breed… It would be good to know for sure…

I have read that Brazilian Terriers have a stronger than usual hunting instinct, which Bindi has… She loves to hunt mice and rats and generally becomes obsessed with it until the job is done… I also read that they can jump really high, Bindi manages to escape over a 6 foot fence!

We find that Bindi also likes to run and explore, quite often we have let her off the lead in the park and she has started sniffing and then she just keeps going and going, it’s as if she doesn’t even know we exist! We have learnt now that we must keep her attention with us when she is off her lead by running around and chasing her and playing games with her, as soon as she gets distracted by a smell in the air, she is gone! We are slowly working on getting her to come back to us though, she is getting better at it…

We have 6 hand tame Cockatiels in our house that are often let out of their cage so that they can wonder around with us while we are home… I noticed that on one of the websites that they said the Brazilian Terrier can not be trusted with small animals…

When we first brought Bindi home she was very interested in the birds and would often stand and wag her tail while looking at them in their cage… We told her off for staring at the birds and used the simple command of “No Bird” when she looked as though she was either getting too excited by them or getting a little too close… Now we don’t have any problems with her and the birds, she ignores them most of the time unless they make a noise in which she looks at them to see what is going on and then quickly loses interest…

I have recently finished hand feeding a baby Cockatiel named Steve… Bindi was always around when I was feeding Steve and when I had him with me sitting on the couch etc… Bindi seemed very calm and comfortable around Steve and I started placing Steve on her back and on the top of her head (in a very controlled situation). Bindi still remained calm and seemed not to care that he was on her… Now they are great mates, he often climbs onto her and chews on the silver parts of her dog collar and she gives him a little sniff and she has licked him a couple of times but it doesn’t seem like a lick as if she wants to eat him, it seems like an affectionate lick…

One morning I put her food down for her to eat and I had Steve sitting on the top of the cage… I walked into our kitchen area to clean up some dishes and looked down over at Bindi to see Steve right up at her bowl getting biscuits out and eating them… She was still eating at the time and it didn’t seem to bother her that he was near her food… This is something I haven’t witnessed before as in my previous experiences I have seen that dogs become very aggressive and protective of their meals…

There was another occasion when I was sitting in our back yard and had Steve with me, he was about a meter in front of me on the grass chewing the grass seeds… Bindi was down the back of the yard near our back fence… She must have seen that something was in the grass and came bolting over towards us… She got about a meter and a half away from Steve and put the brakes on, she realized what it was and knew that she wasn’t to touch him…

These instances have all been under my watch… Although I feel that Bindi understands that she isn’t allowed to go near them I am a true believer that it is in their instinct to hunt and chase small animals and it is not fair to blame the dog for going on its instinct…

I don’t think I would leave the situation unattended as I think that it is just asking for trouble… It is very cute to see them both together though…

It would be good to hear from someone that is familiar with the Brazilian Terrier breed and get their comment…

I really doubt it. Brazilian Terriers are extremely rare, almost unheard of in the United States. The Brazilian Terrier is actually decended from the Smooth Fox Terrier, making it much more likely that your dog is a Smooth Fox Terrier cross. She does have the markings of a Brazilian Terrier, but not the body type. I'm almost sure she is a Smooth Fox Terrier mix, maybe with Jack Russell Terrier or Chihuahua. It's hard to tell. She is a cutie though! I'm a big Smooth Fox Terrier (SFT) fan. Your girl looks a bit like mine, Eve, who is a purebred three-year-old Smooth Fox Terrier. I'm a fan of Brazilian Terriers, but can't find one in the United States. I'm sure there are a few owners of the breed in this country, but I sure don't know of any. There isn't even a breed club in the US yet.

hi, i know this is an old thread, but maybe the site will notify you of a new post hopefully. I have a bazilian terrier that we brought back from brazil (my ex is brazilian) and I remember seeing puppies in a pet store here once that looked just like him but they were called "rat terriers". I've looke at pictures of both and its hard to tell the difference. Maybe your dog is rat terrier...?